Rufinus ( grc-gre, Ῥουφῖνος;
fl. ) was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
epigrammatist.
Some thirty-eight
epigrams are attributed to Rufinus in the fifth book of the
Greek Anthology, and another epigram, which is ascribed to an otherwise unknown ''Rufinus Domesticus'' in the ''
Anthology of Planudes,'' may also be by him. His verses are of the same light amatory character as those of
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus ( grc-gre, Ἀγαθίας σχολαστικός; Martindale, Jones & Morris (1992), pp. 23–25582/594), of Myrina (Mysia), an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor (Turkey), was a Greek poet and the principal histo ...
,
Paulus Silentiarius,
Macedonius, and others.
When Rufinus lived is unknown. He probably postdated the ''Garland'' of
Philip of Thessalonica
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...
, produced under Nero.
Alan Cameron estimates that his poems must have existed by the 390s at the latest as he believes he was copied by
Ausonius
Decimius Magnus Ausonius (; – c. 395) was a Roman poet and teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala in Aquitaine, modern Bordeaux, France. For a time he was tutor to the future emperor Gratian, who afterwards bestowed the consulship on him ...
and
Claudian. Cameron dates Rufinus to before
Strato, which would mean that he was active before 250.
Denys Page
Sir Denys Lionel Page (11 May 19086 July 1978) was a British classicist and textual critic who served as the 34th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and the 35th Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for ...
, conversely, places Strato before Rufinus and is in favour of a fourth century date for the latter.
Page is more cautious about the idea that Ausonius and Claudian borrowed from Rufinus.
In his dating, he has the support of
Barry Baldwin Barry Baldwin (born in England in 1937) is a classicist, journalist and author of mystery fiction. He gained a doctorate at the University of Nottingham and worked in Australia and Canada. For two years he contributed a regular column to the Briti ...
, who notes similar vocabulary between Rufinus and
Patristic writers.
Rufinus possibly lived near Ephesus, where one of his poems is set.
Bibliography
''The Greek Anthology I''(Loeb Classical Library) translated by W. R. Paton. London: Heinemann, 1916.
"Rufinus" William Smith (ed.) ''
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 ...
.'' Vol. III. London, 1870.
*Baldwin, Barry (1980). "Notes on Rufinus". ''Phoenix.'' 34 (4): 337-346.
*Cameron, Alan (1982). "Strato and Rufinus". ''The Classical Quarterly.'' 32. (1): 166-167.
References
External links
*
Roman-era Greeks
Byzantine poets
Epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology
{{AncientGreece-poet-stub